


Shades of Red

by Rubynye



Category: DC Comics
Genre: Crossdressing, M/M, Rimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-14
Updated: 2010-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-06 06:25:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An evening undercover, a night off, and the space in between.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shades of Red

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for [](http://svmadelyn.livejournal.com/profile)[**svmadelyn**](http://svmadelyn.livejournal.com/)'s [Kink and Cliche Multifandom Challenge](http://www.livejournal.com/users/svmadelyn/233449.html) (and I listed the challenges I was assigned under the second lj-cut: if you are easily squicked or have particular squicks, you may want to check the list I used before reading this.) It's far too overdue to submit, but I decided to post it anyway. I hope that's OK.

Title: Shades of Red  
Fandom: DC Comics  
Rating: NC-17. Kinky, at that.  
Pairing: Nightwing/Robin (Dick/Tim)  
Summary: An evening undercover, a night off, and the space in between.  
Spoilers For/Based On: _Batman: Gotham Knights_ issues #33-36 and #47.  
My most gracious and wonderful Beta: [](http://sister-wolf.livejournal.com/profile)[**sister_wolf**](http://sister-wolf.livejournal.com/)  
Disclaimer: So not mine.   
Author's Notes: I wrote this for [](http://svmadelyn.livejournal.com/profile)[**svmadelyn**](http://svmadelyn.livejournal.com/)'s [Kink and Cliche Multifandom Challenge](http://www.livejournal.com/users/svmadelyn/233449.html) (and I listed the challenges I was assigned under the second lj-cut: if you are easily squicked or have particular squicks, you may want to check the list I used before reading this.) It's far too overdue to submit, but I decided to post it anyway. I hope that's OK.

 

"Well, she's almost certainly Ariadne Pinxit." Tim takes off the large brooch that houses wearable scanners; he already plugged his scanner into the laptop as soon as the hotel room door shut behind them. "The facial scanner gives it an 85 percent probability, but your retinal scanner gives a 93, and all the major landmarks match, so, arguably, we've got the right avant-garde artist."

Dick has been doing pull-ups in the bathroom doorway for nearly ten minutes, and has yet to break a sweat. Sometimes Tim almost hates him. "I'm glad this was worth your wearing high heels."

"If Barbara could fight crime in heels I can walk around a gallery opening for a few hours." Freed from the brooch, the scarf falls around Tim's shoulders; he catches it and folds it up into a small square on the dresser, and shrugs off the jacket.

"On a healing stab wound? Sit down already." Dick's voice has no strain in it at all. Tim is tempted to grab Dick's legs and make him pull them both up; instead he says, "You're one to talk," as he carries the laptop over to the small round table by the window, sits down and glances outside. This room puts them nearly high enough for nighttime, but the city would look brighter from outside on a rooftop, and the breeze would pour over Tim's face and through his hair, smelling of car exhaust and humanity and crime. The hotel-room air is smooth and still; the chair is padded wood beneath Tim's legs, which itch a little inside the pantyhose. The leg wound aches dully, but it's bearable.

Dick hums thoughtfully. "I'm surprised she came back to Gotham. Do you think it's for someone specific?"

"If so, I'm not sure who. She doesn't have family here, and she killed all but one of the men who attacked her; that one subsequently died in jail." Tim zooms in on the left lower quadrant of the face smiling out of the laptop screen. "Hmm, that mole wasn't there before."

"Where?" Dick swings his legs up and flips down from the doorway, landing on his hands, and walks on them for a few steps before flipping upright to lean over Tim's shoulder. Pointing out a spot an inch below the corner of her mouth and calculating the measurements, Tim ignores Dick's scent, freshly sweaty and warm, as if Tim can smell the glow off him. Which he's ignoring. "Think that's nanite ink?"

"Could be. Maybe Mr. Grayson should have lunch with Ms. Effingo and investigate." Dick stands up, hands on hips, and Tim snorts. "How will you do that, kiss her? I should have known you wouldn't pass up a redhead."

Dick presses his hand to his chest. "I'm hurt, truly hurt. Besides, you make a hotter redhead than she does."

"Well, I was available," Tim says, maybe a little bitterly. With one swift movement Dick unpins Tim's chignon and sweeps the freed hair forward over his face. Listening to Dick's laugh move as he pushes the fall of hair from his eyes, Tim aims down and back from where Dick had been, and smiles when his knuckles thwack Dick's thigh and Dick howls, mostly but not entirely for effect. "Ow! You've crippled me for life!"

"Somehow I doubt that." Tim opens the log to check over his report, then pauses. When he turns his head, pale red hair falls in a vaguely scratchy tumble around his face and neck. "How much of a risk do you think she is?"

"Hmm." Dick flops onto the bed. "Not that much. She seemed genuinely happy at the opening tonight. And Bane said --- don't make that face at me, Boy Wonder--- Bane reported that she was on the straight and narrow."

"On the other hand, she _did_ kill three men last time, and I'm not sure I find Bane's word all that reassuring." As Tim rereads his report and looks up incidental information, Dick fiddles with the remote, gets up again, and wanders into the shower.

With the shower as background music, Tim does a little searching through approved and less-approved channels. Lillian Effingo's credit records are sparse, one credit card from three months ago, and no criminal records have shown up so far, not even a parking ticket. All of which Tim knew from their briefing, but hacking a police database or two gives him something to think about beside the ivory and blue pantsuit on the other chair, the blouse he's still wearing, or Dick in the shower.

Tim catches himself scratching his cheek, frowns, and makes himself stop before he leaves a mark. Makeup remover always makes him itch, but concealer is itchier; one day he'll ask Steph or Cassie how they stand it. Rubbing the back of his neck beneath the wig, Tim makes a list of what's left to do here; mostly that involves removing the rest of the clothes and the wig that went into 'Beth', Tim's identity tonight, and he'll have to wait till after he leaves to do that. Beth probably wouldn't stay the night, and Tim shouldn't.

Beth's a little demure for Tim's tastes, but she was Dick's idea; of _course_ Dick thought it was hilarious to make Tim pose as a girl to accompany him to tonight's gallery opening, and once Alfred pulled the pantsuit out Tim knew he was doomed. At least the sight of Tim as a redhead shocked Dick into actual, if brief, silence. Next time he's going to have to figure out what will make Dick blush.

The shower shuts off, and Tim carefully rearranges his expression to look serious, concentrating on the computer screen when Dick emerges naked, scrubbing a towel over his wet hair. Tim swallows hard, does not glance over, and rereads the same lines four times before he realizes it.

_Subject seems unlikely to resume criminal activity, though of course it is too soon to assess the risk numerically, even within a range. Her new identity appears so far to be entirely a fabrication, not stolen either in whole or in part. In conclusion_

A bare hand on his thigh, a laugh from by his knee. "Jesus!" How did Dick get underneath the table before Tim noticed?

"No, just me." Dick's smile shines in the dimness under the table, and when he strokes a hand up Tim's uninjured calf Tim holds down a shudder through willpower alone. "You're still in your _pantyhose_," Dick says with wonder and horror. "Weren't you going to undress? Or do you like wearing Laura Ashley?"

Refusing to dignify that with even a raised eyebrow, Tim turns back to his report, trying to remember what he was going to add. "The hotel staff saw you come in with a redheaded girl. You need to leave with one."

"All the more reason for you to take this off." Dick's voice is still light, but... Tim looks down at him again, at Dick's hands on his thighs and Dick's face, his chin on Tim's knee. There's this... space that opens up sometimes, during patrol or in the Cave or at Dick's apartment, at nearly random times; it's within everything else in their lives as vigilantes, as Bats, as Robins, but not really belonging to any of it, to anything but the two of them. It's not when or where they actually do anything, but where and when those things begin. Tim can feel it starting now, as Dick looks up at him out of dark blue eyes.

But there's a report to edit, and so much else, and..."We have stuff to do," Tim says, while he still can. Dick, unfazed, doesn't move or look down, hands still and warm on Tim's thighs. "Stuff," Dick repeats, and his eyes are... it's like they're getting bigger, though they can't possibly be.

"We both have reports to finish, and equipment to return, and I have to dye my eyebrows." OK, that was just a little too much information; when Dick drops his head to laugh Tim knows he's lost.

"You have to dye your _eyebrows_," Dick gasps, shaking his head so wet hair brushes Tim's thighs. "God, Tim, that's even better, or worse, than 'I have to wash my hair'."

"Well, they're red right now. I can't go home tomorrow and tell my Dad some weird eyebrow-bleaching fad is sweeping school."

It's futile, and Tim knows it, and Dick knows it, and he looks up grinning. "Impressive attention to detail," Dick says, raising an eyebrow. "Maybe you could shave them."

"Ugh, _no_. Besides, I have to..." Well, what? Tim stares at the blinking cursor, searching unsuccessfully for the mental list he made just a few minutes ago. His parents think he's sleeping over at a friend's, his homework was the reading he did while getting dressed and the problem set he did two days ago, and he's off patrol tonight.

"Whoa," says Dick. "Don't glare at the laptop like that, you'll break it."

_I'm not Kon, I can't break a computer by frowning at it_, Tim thinks, absurdly, and realizes that he was supposed to find that amusing. "Besides," Dick continues, "if you stay I'll give you a ride to school in the morning. You can tell them I'm your big brother."

Tim surrenders a laugh. "Why don't you wear this wig, and I'll tell them you're my crazy sister."

"Nah, it looks much better on you." Dick kisses Tim's knee, and the answering shiver is only mostly repressed. "Lift up," Dick orders, and when Tim does Dick slides hot bare hands all the way up to Tim's waist, never once lifting them from Tim's skin till he grasps the waistband of the pantyhose. Holding himself up on his arms is relatively easy, but Tim is still on the verge of shaking. "Dick," Tim says, and it comes out a groan, and nothing _else_ will. Not "I should go" or "we shouldn't" or "we're still on duty". Not when Dick winks at Tim as he peels the pantyhose over his knees and off his feet, as carefully and precisely as if he were disarming and opening Tim's uniform, and _man_ is Tim glad he's untaped himself already.

Especially when Dick sucks him in. It's always a bit of a shock, the heat and wet and tug of it, how excessively good it is and the way Tim can feel it all over his body, and Dick always does it as if it should be that way, engulfing him to the root, swallowing around him. Sometimes Dick backs off and teases with coy licks and kisses, sometimes he sucks hard as if he could suck Tim's brain right out of his head, but he always starts off this way.

Tim fights his own body's desire to arch and squirm, clutching the edge of the table instead of Dick's hair till the wooden rim dents his fingers. "Dick, God, I..."

Dick pulls up, dragging his lips up every millimeter of Tim's shaft, flicking his tongue over the head, and off. And looks up with something more like a toothy smirk than a grin. "Don't you have eyebrows to tint?" Dick asks, and Tim _seriously_ considers kicking him. "You," Tim gasps, the air cold after the heat of Dick's mouth, "are such. A."

"Yeah, I am." Pressing his hands into Tim's hips, over the bones of his pelvis, Dick tugs Tim forward, kissing his inner thigh.

Tim almost thinks Dick is going to drag him beneath the table, and firms his grip on its edge, but Dick stops with Tim's ass hanging awkwardly off the edge of the chair. "This is kind of uncom--- oh, holy _fuck_." It's not uncomfortable anymore, it's nothing short of fucking _amazing_, because Dick is cupping Tim's thighs in his hands, pushing them up and apart, and he's _licking_ him. Beneath his balls, and lower, up and down, further down on each pass. Tim's knees ram into the table, but he barely notices; all he can feel is the wet burn of every single nerve between his legs, as Dick nuzzles Tim's perineum and licks his asshole and it ought to be awful and it's amazing.

Tim hears someone gasping "oh god oh god holy shit" and realizes it has to be him. He slams his mouth shut and bites the inside of his lip and swallows a whimper. Dick is licking in circles, Tim can feel every individual fold as Dick flicks his tongue over them, and he can't even concentrate on the rhythm because waves of sensation are crashing up through his balls and his belly, slamming into his lungs to knock the breath from him, shuddering up his spine into his brain.

If Tim keeps hanging onto the table it's going to tip and the laptop will fall.

Tim blinks at the computer. Its cursor blinks brightly back at him. He really, really hopes he actually found all of the hidden cameras on it. Dick is digging his fingers into Tim's thighs, hard enough that it ought to hurt, but Tim's entire body is thrumming till it feels like nothing could hurt. And Dick is humming, a buzz in Tim's flesh, and dragging him forward, and not slowing down.

Tim goes with it. He should be thinking. He can't think anymore. He drops his shoulders against the chair back, reaching up to grab it; the back of the bra twists as he wriggles and slides down, the blouse tugs the high collar round his throat, a flimsier hold than his cape. Dick pushes Tim's legs back and up, hands hard and warm as Tim presses into his hold, and he's still licking, and when he starts humming again Tim recognizes the tune like a slap, but a good one.

Laughing hurts, because Tim doesn't have any breath to laugh with. "Of all, all Monty Python's brilliant works, nngh, _Dick_\---" because Dick is laughing, a different buzz than the humming, and he doesn't _stop_ "---all their songs and you pick that one." He spat that out unintelligibly fast, between one gasp and the next, but Dick laughs again, laughs _into_ him, and Tim thinks he's going to die or come or both at once as his back helplessly arches.

Still humming, Dick licks up a little, licking Tim's balls and sucking on them each in turn, and Tim can hear himself moaning and feel the stretch of his thighs and the pull against his arms as he writhes, as Dick pulls him onto his face. Dick licks a long swipe up Tim's dick and it twitches; sensation comes crashing back in one huge wave and Tim can't breathe and he shakes all over, he hears himself cry out like a hurt thing because it feels so wrenchingly good as he comes hard, bucking against Dick's face and groaning, feeling as if the top of his head has blown right off.

A heartbeat, two, three, four. Tim shivers, dragging air into his lungs, red pulsing down to black behind his eyelids. Eventually he registers Dick pulling off him, with an oversensitive ache and a vague sort of relief that at least he didn't come on anything he's still wearing. One of his legs is on the table, closer to the laptop than he'd realized, as he blinks up from flat on his back on the chair, which is digging into the small of his back, and which he is sliding off of, despite Dick's hands pressed into his thighs holding him up.

Dick leans his sweaty forehead against Tim's knee and coughs twice; Tim can feel him trembling and lets go to reach down and push a hand into his hair. The chair is tipping, they really should move, but all either of them can do is gasp, warm damp hair around Tim's fingers and little cool eddies of air over his sweaty skin. Eventually, Dick smiles against Tim's thigh, and lets go of the leg on the table to smudge his hand across his mouth. Undoubtedly, he should have used a napkin instead, and why the hell did Tim just think that?

His brain is misfiring, clearly, like a piece of equipment malfunctioning after a lightning strike or a crash. Dick is pushing on his thigh. Tim scoots back far enough to think of what he'd do to the chair if he sat on it; grimacing, he plants his feet and pushes back far enough to stand on legs that really want to shake. That gives Dick room to unfold himself from beneath the table, not that he needs it.

"Did you like that?" Dick asks, voice a little hoarse, lips a little bruised-looking, and it is so unfair that Tim is the one who still can't talk. Tim nods, and Dick's eyes are dark and serious as they search his face for a long moment.

Then Dick smiles, that bright untarnished smile, and the handprints on the backs of Tim's thighs throb when Dick curls his hands around Tim's biceps and kisses him, slow enough to be ducked. Tim doesn't duck, and Dick's mouth is hot and open and wet over his, and there's a moment of 'ew' and a moment of 'wow' and then he can't be horny again _yet_ can he? Even though he's a teenager? Because he can taste himself, all of himself, and he can taste how much Dick wants it, and his hands are sliding over the moving muscles of Dick's back and he's prickling hot all over, already.

This shouldn't be so hot, any of it. This--- this _thing_ between him and Dick that isn't dating because they both have girlfriends, that's kind of brotherly except when it completely and totally isn't, it shouldn't be so damn hot, but it is.

Tim can feel it all over his skin, inside the blouse he's still wearing, which is crumpling between them. It's going to be wrecked if they don't stop, and plausible deniability only goes so far, and it goes further than Bruce's occasional willingness to overlook. Disengaging from the kiss is much more difficult than it should be, especially when Dick looks painfully shocked for a moment before he understands and grins ruefully. "Here," Dick says, unbuttoning the collar of the blouse, and Tim obediently raises his arms as Dick pulls it up over his head.

Dick smirks a little when he reaches behind Tim to unhook the bra, but he's Dick, it's not like he could help it. Willing him not to comment, Tim reaches up to catch the falsies; for once Dick actually doesn't say anything as he tugs the bra off Tim's arms, and that's the entire disguise except for one part.

When Dick gathers a handful of the wig, bunching it between his hand and Tim's head, Tim has to close his eyes, hugely and suddenly uncertain. Of all the hair colors he could have picked, why did he choose red? He's not--- he's just Tim, and Dick has both hands full of the wig now, and Tim's almost afraid to look up and see who's reflected in Dick's eyes, even when Dick gently tilts his head back.

But all Dick says is, "the usual solvent, right?"

"Right," Tim manages, and Dick lets one handful go, reaches over for the bottle, and detaches the wig. "Come to bed, Tim," Dick says, low and rough, and Tim forces open his eyes, and the hungry look on Dick's face... "The things I want to do to you." He's looking right at Tim, and his hands are in Tim's real hair, curving and pressing behind his head, just about to pull.

Tim shivers, and swallows, and goes.

 

*|*

 

There are things Tim could say, questions spinning in the part of his mind that always notices and never shuts off. There are still issues to consider from tonight's assignment, unanswered problems to solve, not least whether the former Ariadne Pinxit can be allowed to continue her new life. But there's a pleasant ache to Tim's body and a satiated haze over his mind, and he could shrug them off and get up and go back to work, or he could lie here in the remarkably decent bed and let Dick continue tracing the curves of the rose on his right shoulder-blade. "In homage to the late Ms. Pinxit?" Dick finally asks.

"Beth seemed like the type to have a tattoo," Tim replies.

Dick laughs at that. "How'd you apply this by yourself?"

"Wouldn't you like to know." Tim smirks over his shoulder, so he can see Dick's grin and to make it easier for Dick to kiss him. "I think you wanted me to find this," Dick says, resting his chin on Tim's shoulder.

"Is that why you got a hotel room?" There are, after all, places they could have gone after the event that would have been easier to secure.

Dick turns his shrug into a full-body ripple. "Maybe I just wanted to do this in a bed for once, though I guess we could always climb up on the roof if you want. Just watch the leg."

"You totally should have been the one wearing the wig." Tim's banter is slipping, but he can't really bring himself to care much about it when Dick laughs again with effortless cheer, draping his arm across Tim's waist. Maybe he should just let himself sleep, Dick snug against his back, obviously willing him to relax. He can get back to work tomorrow.

Tim is halfway to dozing off when Dick unpeels from his back, sits up and stretches, and the way he's moving--- sometimes Robin needs to wake up fast. "You're going on patrol," Tim says flatly as he sits up.

Dick has the grace to not bother feigning surprise. "Well, yeah."

"And I'm not." It gets easier all the time to get mad at Dick, even when he grins like that.

So he tries another tactic. "Tim, look," Dick says, laying his hand on Tim's shoulder; his voice is Nightwing-practical, with just a hint of an order. "Gotham needs us functional, and your leg needs to heal some more. A night off isn't a punishment."

"Is that what this is?" It's harder than it should be to stay mad at Dick, especially when he smiles like that.

Dick nods towards the bits of Tim's disguise, still on and around the table. "As much of one as we can manage, anyway." He does that big-and-soft-and-blue trick with his eyes again, and it's annoyingly effective. "I'm glad you were available tonight."

Tim sighs, and lets Dick press him back down to the bed. "I'll be back by three, unless something comes up," Dick says, squeezing his shoulder, releasing him slowly; for a moment Dick leans forward, like he's going to kiss Tim again, before he gets off the bed and goes to take another shower.

Tucking his hand under the pillow to find the communicator he knows Dick left there, Tim curls up on his side; briefly listing the useful things he could do if he got up, he closes his eyes, and the lamplight is warm red through his eyelids.

He doesn't have a nightmare all night.

**Author's Note:**

> Cliche: Undercover Lover/have to pretend to be dating   
> Cliche: Pet/ghost/computer as matchmaker   
> Kink: Rimming
> 
> I chose to do the first and third. Since I thought I should do three, to fit the challenge, I also went and piicked up Crossdressing.


End file.
